LEDChess Prototypes
Prototype V0
This initial version was designed with foamcore to be made easily, and features 3 LEDs per square. I chose 3 because it made the board big enough to play with normal pieces, but the additional complexity involved with a grid with 3 LEDs per square was not worth it. I tested the LEDs using a wireless sound-reactive code I set up for my room lights.
Prototype V1
I soldered a protoboard together with an ESP8266 microcontroller as the brains of the operation. I found a few flaws in the design of my 3D model that detracted from the performance of the display, like the strong parallax effect, needless thickness of the sections, and poor wire management.
Prototype V2
This prototype is in it’s early stages and is running the colortest.ino code from the Github repo. It is using a bitboard as the internal representation of the chessboard, which the code scans to decide the output. Deciding the colors is a huge part of the experience, and it’s still a work in progress!